Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-08-06
ABOUT JAPANESE NEWSPAPERS.
What They Exist for and How They Arc
 Made Up.

What They Exist fOr anu now Aney ArO
 Made Up.
 Tokio alone has eleven daily and eleven weekly papers, only two of which are printed in the English language. Nigga saki has d Japanese daily and an English weekly.
 Eighteen other Japanese towns support at least one daily paper each. They are all large, handsome sheets, printed on good paper, in type which even the west ern eye, uninstructed save by the casual perusal of tea chests, can see is good, bold and handsome that kind of type. Where the type is cast cannot say, but if the Japanese can cut the punches for these intricate hieroglyphics, they must be wonderfully well advanced in the me- chanical arts.
 Curious looking sheets they are, these Japanese papers, but they are doing noble work, and before describing them in detail it may be well to explain their mission. They do not go in very strongly for news. Their purpose is chiefly edu- cational. The tradition seems to survive in the navy, judging from late events. These papers, printed in their own tongue, are doing the work of gentlemen ushers tO OANLilZtttlO1ls lll0 OdpctlcSC to the world at large. Their columns are largely filled with translations from Eng fish and American papers and accounts of the doings of civilized people.
 The truly Japanese papers have their little peculiarities. The title seems to have no particular fixed place, except that it must be on the last page. I fancy they generally make up the rest of the paper first and then throw the title in anywhere on the fourth page, unless an ssad' comes in at the last minute, when they leave it out altogether. I am not sure of this, for I have never seen a Japanese paper made up; only judge so from the fact that there are always three CT four immense hieroglyphs of very teachesty character rambling around these Japanese fourth pages, with a strong tendency toward the upper right hand corner, which is where, sm given to understand, the Japanese paper com. mences. However, may be all wrong. These mammoth characters may only be displayed ''ads' for aught know. They occur in every paper, and all look alike A Japanese newspaper doesn't need g title anyhow. They are all s'shimbuns. ' ''Shimbun" means newspaper" in Jap anese, and the Japanese are a blair spoken race, and believe in calling a ''shimbun' s'shimbun. They venture so far as to use qualifying word if there is more than one ''shimbun" in the place or if the ''shimbun'' is some particular sort of 'sshimbun.'' Thus there art mainichi (morning), nichi (daily), cir | Gllustrated), daimos (officiaD and othel ''shimbuns,' but the last title fits then | all, and this, though monotonous, i | sensible. You may name ''shimbun' after all the luminaries of heaven, ant still it remains, in truth and in fact, onl, ''shimbun."
 The Japanese newspapers are ittl, confusing to read until one gets used t l them, but generally their makeup is a f follows: The fourth page seems to be de voted to news items and clippings. The, are a little careless about crediting. have not been able to find a single cretti unless something Japanese, which look like centipede in fit and occurs fire quently, means "exchange." The thirt page is given up to editorials and tn second to feuilleton. am not sure o the editorials, but I am confident of tn feuilleton. It has that solid four columl ...-.i . s.,=s # +-7lrrstrt it-it breathes tha odor of utter inanaty which marks tn newspaper short (short! heaven save tn mark story. Besides, it has picture a rule. This seems to dispel the other wise reasonable idea that it is an editoris on a subject which has thorough reused the editor. The first (last) page though, is the most ineligible and 1T teresting after all, for here are the at Tertisements. Here we find the cut familiar to us from our earliest day The monster bottles of various bitter, beers and other liquids, medicinal an intoxicating; the man with two woode legs, who, presumably, is the only ma in town who does not get his shoes ( Katayama Seitaso. ard others which
 positively decline to mention, except in tl advertising columns at the regular rate
 And the gorgeous Japanese displa lads" have hkened, by implication the body of these papers to the outs cuticle of a tea chest; but as for thes
 s'ads," the tea chest Sis fools to 'em."- Cor. Electrical World.